"Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the crowd…"

7-2-2011 Safeco Field

This blog entry is way over due. I know. And in the month of July alone I’ve only attended three games. That’s pretty sad. But what’s really cool is my blog is still pretty popular and I’m still averaging like, 50 views a day. And something that’s even cooler? This is my 100th blog entry.

So let’s recap my baseball snagging day and get off with life, shall we?

The San Diego Padres were in town for this game. So that meant a potential autograph from Ryan Ludwick or Heath Bell. Two players I admire a lot. It was also “Singles Night” so the beer garden was going to be packed. As soon as the gates opened I ran inside and started looking for any potential baseballs that needed to be plucked out from the center field gap or out of the bullpens. I saw one in the Mariners bullpen so I quickly got to work. I assembled my glove and lowered it down to knock the ball closer. I had to kind of nudge my way closer to these very attractive women that were standing there drinking beer and when they saw what I was doing that started to heckle me. John Shulstad, another Safeco Field regular Ballhawk got on Tv while using his glovetrick. So half of America got to see it. If you want to read an article about it, click here. One lady made a comment, “So you saw that on Tv and figured you’d give it a try?” It wasn’t the heckling that was frustrating me. It was the fact that I didn’t realize the rubber band had moved on me preventing me from capturing the baseball. Plus I was worried that security would come over and shut me down.

I finally got the baseball. And then I found another one after the rest of the stadium opened up. And then I found myself back down in the “Singles Night” area.

THAT was “Singles Night”. Its a special area barricaded off, and its like, an additional ten bucks to get in there to drink overpriced, watered down beer, and mingle with strangers at a Mariners game. There was a live band though. Two dudes playing pianos and singing popular songs. So I guess it was fun. I went further down and caught a conversation between a fan and one of the Padres players. She was trying to pay him a dollar for a baseball. She even crumpled up a dollar bill and threw it at him. Of course, he crumpled it up and threw it right back. She never got a baseball either.

As you can see she has a glove. She has on baseball gear. But she’s talking to a Padres baseball player. Not a Mariners player. Sometimes its difficult to get a baseball from players of the opposing team when you aren’t flying their colors. Know what I mean?

After watching “Singles Night” and being glad I didn’t pay an addition ten dollars to participate, I wandered back over to the third base side. Once I got there a batted ball came my way but instantly died when it reached about five rows in front of me. I thought It would carry the rest of the way…

…the guy in the black shirt got it. I took the picture just as the ball landed in the seats and as you can tell people were still scrambling for it even after the dude caught it. See the guy in the blue shirt row hopping? After that happened Ryan Ludwick started to head towards the dugout and I scrambled towards where I thought he would stop and start signing autographs. Now I’m not the crazy, obsessed autograph hound that knocks over babies and mashes peoples’ popcorn to get a players autograph. But I did want add Ryan Ludwick to my collection. But I didn’t knock over any babies in my pursuit.

Here is a picture of Ryan Ludwick walking towards the dugout…

…and here is a picture of him signing autographs. He kept saying, “I can’t sign for very long, guys. I have to go hit.” and everytime he said that, someone would say, “Just one more, Ryan. Just one more!” and then Ryan would say, “I gotta go hit, man. Sorry.” as he kept signing. I was so amused by the back and forth that I literally forgot to get in there and get him to sign my ticket stub. I was thoroughly enjoying the interaction of him with the fans.

While I was down there watching the Padres take some cuts in the cage I noticed one of the Padres try to hook a fan up out in center field. The fan, of course, bobbled the ball and it dropped down into the center field gap. Glove trick time! I ran the whole way there too. And when I got to the beer garden is so packed I literally had to shove my way through to get to the baseball. Luckily there was a father/son combo standing in front of it discussing ways to get the baseball. And when I started to lower my glove down into the gap the crowd started to laugh, and cheer and cat call and all sorts of stuff. One guy said, “I will give you a million dollars if you can get that baseball.” And I said back, “Dude, I wish you HAD a million dollars.” As I reeled up the baseball. Of course the baseball was quickly handed over to the kid that was standing with his father. His father shook my hand and told his son to thank me.

After that BP came to a close and I perched up at the Padres bullpen to watch the game.

Here are a couple of pictures of Mariners pitching coach Jaime Navarro signing an autograph.

..and the second picture.

Okay so…no Mariner game recap for this blog entry…mainly because I don’t remember who won and I’m not going to dig through the MLB archives to find out the score of a game that happened like, a month ago. But you can enjoy some of my charity stats instead.

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Thought processes and conversations started under the tilted cap of Tropicana Field. Someday everyone will know the Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not TAMPA, or the fictitious city of TAMPA BAY.